Part 3 of this series focused on creating a file share in Azure Storage to be used with Azure Batch. In this part, I will show how to setup a pool of compute node. This can be achieved using both the Azure Portal and the C# or Python API. I will show how to do so using the portal in general, since it may be useful to be familiar with the portal for simple use cases. Then I will provide a summary of the key instructions of the C# API to achieve the same tasks with a few lines of code, and a brief description of how to use the…
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CFD simulations on Azure Batch – Part 3
The first two parts of this series were dedicated to preparing a case to be executed without intervention and to install some useful tools to simplify operations with Azure Storage and Azure Batch. In part 3 I discuss the setup of an Azure Storage account and create a file share that we will use with Azure Batch. Create an Azure Storage account The first step consists in creating an Azure Storage account. To do so, click on the search bar at the top of your Azure account page and type “storage”: Select “Storage accounts”, which leads to the screen: In this screen, click on “+Create”. The following page will open:…
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CFD simulations on Azure Batch – Part 2
In the first part of this series of blog posts, I showed how to configure an OpenFOAM® case to be executed automatically through a bash script. The script allows the case to be restarted at need, without repeating steps of the case setup that were executed the first time it was executed. Before proceeding with the configuration of Azure Batch, I recommend the installation of two tools provided by Azure: Azure Storage Explorer Batch Explorer Both tools are available for Windows®, Linux® and mac®, so their use is not restricting to a specific operating system. I also recommend installing an SSH client: all the main operating systems currently provide one,…
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CFD simulations on Azure Batch – Part 1
I have recently used Azure Batch to do CFD simulations using OpenFOAM®, and I summarize my experience and the procedure I followed below. Before entering the details, it is worth saying what Azure Batch is. Azure Batch is a compute management service that lets users to rapidly deploy batch processes either by running multiple tasks on individual nodes, or a single task on multiple nodes, with high-performance communication (Infiniband or, as it is called in the service, RDMA). While Azure Batch is not a full replacement for an HPC cluster with standard queue systems, it is a convenient option for projects that require a defined number of simulations that need…